Never Lose Sight of the Ultimate Goal

Ever since I started delving into digital photography, I’ve always been under the impression that there will always be something out there I want that I haven’t bought yet, the always looming “next purchase”. It’s like when you get into trading cards, or any other kind of collectible hobby. Except now you’re paying 1000 dollars for one “card”, or one lens or camera. Quite a big step up. “Toys for grown-ups”, or so I like to call them.

After using my Canon EOS 30D for two years, I bought the newer, nicer EOS 7D this February. With the passing of time, and the advancement of technology, I was able to get the 7D for almost the same price I paid for the 30D two years ago. Magical. the 7D can shoot faster, focus more accurately, shoot in lower light and produce cleaner and more detailed pictures…or so the manufacturer likes to tell you. And it’s true…for the most part.

But it’s also a trap. A trap to get you locked in, to spend the money, thousands upon thousands upon thousands (and believe me, I’ve spent my thousands already, and probably many more to come!). What they don’t want you to remember, is that you used your old camera with no complaints; you dragged it everywhere with you, abused it, just gave it a good old lovin’ for the last two years. And they want you to forget it now and jump onto the newer, brighter, better ship…for the next two years at least. Or even worse, until the next model comes out, which could be even within a single year of release of the current model!

Last week, I was cleaning out an old compact flash card I had lying around, and found some files on it from a mid-April dinner I had with my friend (and my JET predecessor) Katharine. I loaded the photos on the computer and said “wow these are great photos!”. And then realized – wait, didn’t I take these on my now “extinct” 30D? As it turned out, I had forgotten to charge the battery for my 7D, and so I grabbed the 30D on my way out the door. And what do you know, it gave me great files, and flew smoothly in my hands, my friend the 30D that I’d used for two long loving years. Take that 7D and Canon marketing!

The moral of the story is that you should never lose sight of what your goal really is. And that’s to take good pictures, no matter what camera you use. Old, new, cheap, expensive, I strive to forget these things, at least when I shoot. I am always privy to the same desires everyone else is; i.e., when’s the next newest, latest, and greatest camera coming out? But I always try to remind myself to take a step back and evaluate what I’m really trying to do. Sometimes you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, but he sure does his old tricks really damn well! (It helps if the lenses are good too! The EF 50 f/1.4 suuuuure is sharp hehe)

It was great to see Kat after so long. She and Martin were headed back to Seattle, so hopefully I can see her again upon my return. Can’t believe it was four years ago that I took the reins from her as the new CIR in Taki, and that this year I’ll be passing the torch to yet another new CIR. Time flies. Here we are eating at a local Chinese place right by where Hide and Jessica live. Hide and Jessica, by the way, are really cool cats. Jessica runs an English School; I met them both quite a while back now and boy have their two kids grown! I like how they named them so that Japanese or English, they have names that are well-recognized and easy to pronounce.

Soy sauce. I was showing Hide how using a wide aperture and creating separation from the background would throw the background out of focus. This shot was taken at 85mm equivalent and f/2.0.

Hide making a weird face.

Heidi (ハイジ in Japanese, like the cartoon character!) looks so much like Jessica. What a beautiful girl. Look ma, no front teeth!

Two portraits of Jesus (Jessica and Hide have two cats, and they both look identical! One is named Jesus, one is named Evil…right…)

Jesus and Evil chow down on some spilt milk. You can see how similar they look! Like twins 🙂

Conan (コナン, also like the other really famous cartoon character!) looks alot like Hide – Mother and daughter, father and son! No clue what he was doing by the way.

Kat and Martin had a couple of rabbits that they brought with them:

But my two favorite shots of the night came when the cats started to notice the rabbits! Even as the cats began to “explore” (aka thump on the head) their new associates, the rabbits didn’t even move…made for a side-splitting scene that I tried to capture accurately in these pics…enjoy!

I recently got back into photography and I nearly convinced myself to spend thousands of dollars on gear to get started. After some serious thinking I came to the realization that I’m not making a living on photography and that it’d be best for me to buy an entry level DSLR (Canon T2i/550D) and steadily build my lens collection as I became more involved with this hobby.

Glad to hear it man 🙂 The T2i is a great camera, I’ve played with it at stores. Probably going to upgrade my gf’s cam to that for her birthday, she’s got the Original Rebel xti from 3 years ago (which I also bought her haha). Lenses are where it’s at, but again, I want so many but actually “need” so few hehehe.

When I went on the off campus Hawaii photography trip, all the students had some snazzy SLR. I had a DSLR and my Leica M6. Anyways, we were shooting away with our cameras… Our photography professor, pulled out her purple plastic camera.

I swear she had the nicest photos out of the whole group. It’s really never about the equipment, technology is overrated.

Woooow you have an M6? That’s great 🙂 I use an old Canon 1-N film camera and a 6×6 cm Yashica film TLR (Twin Lens Reflex) camera when I feel like making some real images that I want to hang in my house. Something about film that makes me shoot better and enjoy it more!

I wonder if it was the purple that did it haha 😉 I 100 percent agree with you, if you can see the image any camera will do!